Understanding Cultural Studies Liza Das

Cultural Studies
Prof. Dr. Liza Das

Department of Humanities and Social Sciences
Indian Institute of Technology, Guwahati

Module No. # 01
Introduction
Lecture No. # 02
Understanding Cultural Studies Part-2

Welcome back to NPTEL, the National Program on Technology Enhanced Learning.As
you are aware, we are in a series of lectures collectively entitled Cultural Studies.These
lectures are being brought to you by the Indian Institutes of Technology and the Indian
Institute of Science. The lectures are for students in engineering colleges and in IITs,
where humanities and social sciencesare taught as both core and elective subjects. I
amLiza and I teach at the Department of Humanities and Social Sciences in
IITGuwahati.
So, we have already been through the introductory lecture.In the first lecture of the
series, the lecture beinggiven today is a continuation of the first lecture.In that, we look
at the scope of cultural studies in a bit to understand cultural studies as a discipline, as a
domain.Some of the characteristics of cultural studieswe have already talked about in the
first lecture, for instance, we saw that cultural studies was quite
resolutelyinterdisciplinary in nature and by the fact that it has noreally referent, and it is
to do with ways of talking.We also found ways of talking about cultural forms cultural
practices. We saw that key terms and concept are essential to the discourse of cultural
studies.
Well, before we begin to talk aboutthe topic in every lecture, we are going to do a brief
recap.At the beginning ofeach lecture we are going to talk briefly about what we did not
lecture in a bid to know retainthe degree of continuity from the previous lectures.
(Refer Slide Time: 02:56)

So, we move on now to the recap of lecture one, and we saw that Chris Barker, in his
Sage Dictionary of Cultural Studies, terms Cultural Studies, domain of Cultural Studies
as an interdisciplinary or post disciplinary field and also he points to the fact that cultural
studies really is a language-game. It is constituted by the language-game of talking in
various ways, in the re-describing cultural practices forms, institutions in a bit as we will
find later to in bit to remove, establish ways and patterns of thinking that we may have
collected over so many years. And that the theoretical terms developed and deployed by
persons calling their work Cultural Studies. It is these themselves constitute what
Cultural Studies is.


Then we found that, Raymond Williams, RichardsHoggart and EPThompson are the
three persons who were responsible for eventually leading to the discipline Cultural
Studies and we also saw that we could actually pin-point a dateas far as birds. So, to
speak of cultural studies as the discipline as an academic disciplineis concerned and we,
for that, we need to go back to the establishment of the Center for Contemporary
Cultures Studies of Culture at the University of Birmingham, whose first director was
Richard Hoggart.

Then, we saw that this break from established ways of thinking which eventually led to
the formation of Cultural Studies as a discipline is characterized by what we called
Culturalism, Materialism and Marxism. At least, at early phase is not that cultural study,
as a discipline has remained with these characteristics. As we shall see, there has been a
cultural term. In fact, we saw from Bennett and Fraw that the cultural term is about
meanings is about discourses, about meaning formation signification along with the fact
that it does retain certain Culturalism and definitely a Marxist point of analysis. Then, we
defined culture as something that is ordinary and we distinguished it from common
sensical ways of looking at culture as to do with, to do with cultural practices like points,
cultural forms like music, theoretic etcetera.

And we said that no culture is ordinary and we saw through Raymond Williams that
culture is a way of lifeand cultural studies takes as its data, the various everyday
practices and cultural forms that constitute our culture.So, in that, I should add here that
popular culture also therefore, becomesvery important part of cultural studies; a very
important part of the data of cultural studies. So, culture is then, ordinary culture is a way
of life, culture is democratized and culture is to do with the creation and generation of
meaning.

We also saw that we need to make a difference between cultural studies and the study of
culture in that, the culture, the study of culture we may say safely is to do with the older
ways of doing anthropology, whereascultural studies is to do withsymbolic forms and
their signifying practices.

Therefore, a few of the ways in which culture is variously seen with the point that we can
gain from the last lectureare these: at culture is a tool, culture is a tool through which he
may find out way in our social and cultural life.Culture is the language.Culture refers to
artifacts.Cultural is of course a way of life and culture is deeply endued with power.

So, these are the various ways in which we shall be looking at culture in our course
Cultural Studies. So, the key source takes in this second lecture are Chris Barkers
Cultural Studies Theory and Practice book which had said in lecture one.May be the if
you have to choose a particular text as a textbook, this would be it.And the other books
in this, referred to in this course,is again by Barker-theSage Dictionary of Cultural
Studies and making sense of Cultural Studies. So, what was edited volume
representations, Tony Bennett and J ohn Frows edited volume-The Sage Handbook of
Cultural Analysis and PramodNayars An Introduction to Cultural Studies.
Well. So, the lecture today is designed in such a way as to be able to unpackthe scope of
cultural studies. So, while we talk about the scope of cultural studies and all that is
entailed in the study of Cultural Studies, that is we cannot talk about all that is entailed at
least within the limits of a singleone hour lecture, butwe shall be able to understand what
cultural studies is as a domain as we lookedat the various things that fall into the scope of
cultural studies.These would also; all that I am going to say in this lecture on
Understanding Cultural Studies is this.Most of it is going to be reflected in individual
lectures devoted to individual topics.

So, I hope by youlooking at some of the components of cultural studies.We will be able
to understandin a better way, what this domain is all about,what this discipline is all
about if at all we can call it a discipline.The first thing that we need to note here is many
or other, it has been accepted way of consideringnature and nurture as separate. Nature
isrelated to biology, nature is a people thinknature is different from culture, but in our
course, we are going to have, we are going to look at ourselves as cultural beings from a
bio cultural perspective.
So, we bring in nature and nurture together.We do not really separate these asbinary
oppositions and say that nature is different and nurture is different. In at leastthe cluster
of lectures in module one devoted to what science has to tell us about ourselves is
cultural beings.There in, we shall be able to see that nature and nurture cannot or nature
and culture are not to be separated when we try and build discourse on understanding
ourselves is cultural beings.

Second,Cultural Studies alsolooks at the body for now; this follows from theslide before
this.The individual body is not again an individual, not isolatedand it is not an individual
body in the sense that, the body becomes social instrument. We are cultural beings, we
are in a body. So, the body too isunderstood is one the scope of cultural studies includes
looking at the body as social or cultural instruments and docile, as one ofthe
philosophers, Michel Foucault has said as a docile tool of productivity a malleable or
manipulable tool of productivity.

So, beginning withbiology, beginning with the body, we find that cultural studies also
encompass looking at the body as a cultural formnot simply as a biological form.Next as
I mentioned in the first lecture, subjectivity is an immensely important term.It is a key
termwith identity really perhaps among the most important terms in cultural studies and
much of about we are going to talk in just around subjectivity and while Chris Barker
may define subjectivity atthree levels that the subjectivity may be defined as the
condition of being a person and subjectivity areall also refers to the processes that go into
the construction of a person and it is a experience of being a person.Recall also from the
last lecture, that objectivity is highly suspect in cultural studies. We understand
everything to do with culture, including science as emanating from human beings, from
human, from knowledge produced by human beingsand much of it is understood as
being subjective, whether at the individual level or whether at the collective
levelknowledge.Therefore, cultural forms are seen as subjective forms and subjectivity is
an important part, important component of cultural studies.

The next term that we have to look at isidentity andlike subjectivity is so (( )) many of
cultural studies and identity is alsoa keys term that contributes to the discourse of
cultural studies andthese other terms also coming as are the cultural studiesdomain is
concerned and these terms are terms like class, ethnicity, gender, race and sexuality.
These are alsopart and parcel of ourselves as culturalbeings, in that we belong to a
certain classor an ethnic group or at least somecommunity or a race, we have certain
sexual orientationsand also we are our behaviors largely constructed by the expectation
of gender roles and gender modules.
So, remember what was our mega question, why do we live the kind of life that we live.
So, why do we live the kind of life that we live is informedby these categories, these
categories are categories of identity- class, ethnicity, gender, race and sexuality.

So, we as cultural beings also live out our lives according to very well find ourselves in
these categories.What cultural studies do again isquestion quite radically, what is meant
by common sense.Common sense cultural studies holds maybe spontaneous, it may be
unconscious butcommon sense is nothing butthe habits of thinking, the patterns of
thinking that we have collected and which needs to be queried. We need toscrutinize
common sense and in a bit.And our goal in cultural studies is to show that whatever is
common, need not full of sense.
So, our cultural practices are informed by these many forms of common sense which
may behind thereso called,so called innocent venure or behind their so called naturalized,
naturalized use may actually attribute to certain social inequalities and may also help in
power to instantiate itself in many ways. So common sense is again an area that is that, it
is within the scope of cultural studies to unravelwhat is not sore of sensible in common
sense.

Then, the scope of cultural studies includes very importantly the study of
Ideology.Ideology is understood as ideas or understood as consciousness, a certain
worldview way will look and understand and perceive the world and our place in it. It
can also become a doctrine if you follow a particular ideologyor you are caught in a
certain ideology and these ideology also forms the maps of meaning.
So, ideology thereforeis an important part of cultural studies because it tells us that as
cultural beings, we are to a large extent under the sway of certain ideologies or ways of
thinking and in our, in some of our lectures for instance, in our lecture on Marxism, we
shall find that ideology is part and parcel of the power of the ruling class. So, we are
constituted by ideology and or actions or propel to speak by the ideologies or the
worldviews that we hold in our minds.

So if culture is ordinary is culture is to do with the ways of life, these ways of life are as
culture studies will show us are deeply imbued by certain ways of thinking. In fact, Chris
Barker in The Sage Dictionary of Cultural Studies has this to say about the importance of
ideology in cultural studies. Now he says this, so influential has the concept of ideology
been within cultural studies that the whole field was once dubbed ideological studies.
This is just to show you how important the study of ideology is in cultural studies.

Then the scope of cultural studies within which we understand the domain of cultural
studies has representation as a very important term in it; representation or to re-present
things. We understandeverything has a representation or everything is mediated any
representation is mediated by a certain ideology or a certain way of thinking. So
representation therefore, if we look at this slide, is both inclusive and exclusive.It
includes some people and it excludes others, excludes others.It includes certain ways of
thinking and it excludes other ways of thinking. So, representation we understand as in
cultural studies, we understand as being always impartial, always provisional and always
whether overtly or covertlyalways backed by power.

So, the scope of cultural studies also, in case an understanding of terms like
representation and how representations are often as mentioned by one of the critics
Danny Carolier are oftenalso misrepresentations of things.Then let me bring your
attention to an important phrase called the Circuit of Culture and this is by Stuart Hall,
we came across StuartHall in our first lectureand Stuart Hall gives us this diagram, this
circuit of culture. So, culture may be understood as a circuit having certain
componentsthese components are in turn,the key concepts or terms that build the
discourse of cultural studiesand these are a representation, regulation, identity,
consumption and production.

So, the circuit of culture is again, one of the fundamental formulations that in his scholar
cultural study needs to look at. Representation, regulation, consumption, identity and
production are itskey components, are the key components in this circuit, as given to us
by Stuart Hall.Then also, understanding cultural studies in detail, in recognizing the fact
that language, language really is what Chris Barker calls a central concern in cultural
studies. So, according to Chris Barker, language is a central concerned of cultural
studies.It is the means and medium for the generation of significance or meaning.We saw
in the last lecturethat meaning creation or the generation of meaning is one of the ways
in which culture is understood.Culture is a site, culture is an agentfor the generation of
meaning in a social cultural practices
So, Chris Barker says thathow we talk about meaning? How is meaning generated and he
says that language is the chief concern in cultural studies, in that it is both the means by
which meaning is generated, significant generator and it is also the media for
thegeneration of meaning. So, let us read on from Chris Barker, the concept of meaning
is core to the explication of culture.To investigate culture is to explore, look at this to
investigate culture.This is how we understand the both methodology and the domain of
cultural studies.To investigate culture is to explore how meaning is produced
symbolically in langue as a signifying system. It is only through language that you can
have meaning; you can have the generation, the encoding and the decoding of meaning.
So, to investigate culture, what is culture again; the practices of our in our ordinary
practices or every day to day practices. So, to investigate culture from cultural studies
methodology using a cultural studies methodology entails this. So, explore how meaning
is produced symbolicallyin language as the signifying system. Here meaning is generated
through difference, the relational one signifier to another rather than by reference to fix
entities in an independent object world.
Now, at this juncture we will not unpracticed because are we devoting thislecture solely
to understanding the switches, the lecture on structuralism. How culture is full of
signifying practices and how there is no really following the linguistic model, there is no
direct references to things both in language and in culture obtained a meaning by a
system of difference and system of relation to other units in that.
Culture in that sense, works like a language.At this juncture, suffices for us to simply
understand thatculture is exploredby looking at our symbolic practices.By lookingat the
way in which meaning is created and how is meaning created?Meaning is created
because of this phenomenon call language. Language is both as Barkersaysboth the
means and the medium for the generation of meaning.

Indeed, in another book Making Sense of Cultural Studies,Barker says, the machinery
and operations of language are central concerns, and problems,for cultural
studies.Indeed, the investigation of culture has often been regarded as virtually
interchangeable with the exploration of meaning produced symbolically through
signifying systems that work like a language. So important so central is language in
cultural studies that we look at our culture practices in terms also of language, in terms of
signifying practices keep practices the generate meaning.
Therefore, from this we may argueagain argue for the importance of subjectivity and the
relative, the fact that objectivity is highly suspect in cultural studies.We therefore, going
to say that, there are no objective truths there that they can only be
justifications.Knowledge is a matter of being able to justify.Remember, we had used the
term epistemology in the last lecture, and what did we, how did we define an
epistemology?We define epistemology as the theory of knowledge; we define a
epistemology as a branch in philosophythat looks at the scope, the origins and the limits
of knowledge limits in the sense of the conditions under which knowledge is
possible.There may be different ways in whichwe can get knowledge for in sense,
imperialism is one way in which knowledge may be constructed, and rationalism is
another way.
Now, as far as knowledge production, as far as meaning production is concerned in
cultural studies,Barker and other scholars say that, it all depends on how you justify, how
you justify a belief for instance, we make this,and we make this differenceat least for an
elementary purposes.We make this difference or distinction betweenbelief and
knowledge.We say that we may hold the belief that need not be knowledge.
So, knowledge is defined as justified belief that has been justified.The cultural studies
holds, that in a scenario where we can never have objective truths because everything is
a representation and representations are made by human beings in a certain condition of
knowledge, in a certainknowledge situation of which have been given rise to by
contingent evens by being in a particular situation in space and time. So, cultural studies
therefore, holds that all we can do is only put forward justifications and justifications are
represented through one medium which is language.
So, thereforeknowledge becomes more a subjective matter and subjectivity is therefore
again like language, a central concern in cultural studies. So, what have, we understood
till now, I would say that culture is understood,if it is understand culture and cultural
studies.Culture is understood as not high forms on practices, culture is ordinary,culture is
part and parcel over way of life. The cultural practices, the forms, the institutions
education for instance, is an institutionis part of culture.Culture is democratized and
culture is doing with the production of meaning.As far as last point is concerned, we
found that the production of meaning behind the production of meaning, the means and
medium for significance and meaning creation is none butlanguage. And we found that
there are other important things like representation which is always partial like
epistemology, like subjectivity, where knowledge is ultimately a matter of not knowing
objective truths butabout justifications.
Now, the more you can justify, the more whatever youput forward is understood.Now,
now behind this, these justifications are also issues of power and politics, whose
definition we shouldtake whose description should we take and we also found one of the
concerns of cultural studies is to re-describe, to resignify things. To talk about things in
new ways, cultural studies is all about talking about things in newer ways building
different discourses, so that habitual pattern of thinking habitual ways of thinking are a
sort of dismantled and we begin to see things a new.


So far, this is what is meant by cultural studies, which is, this is meant, what is meant by
studying cultural studies, studying our culture from cultural studies methodology; this is
what is meant by studying culture using cultural studies methodology.Thenthe scope of
cultural studies also includes studying other issues in terms of cultural formations.
For instance, the nation is seen as a cultural construct.Now, many of us are used to
thinking of nations as agiven, for instance, I am in Indian, my nationality is Indian, I
belong toplace which has certain boundaries andthere is, geographically weare all bound
together in a country known as India.In cultural studies, we re-describe this by talking
about nation in a different way.This is one exampleby which you can understand what
we do in cultural studies. What we do is, we re-describe things, we sort of try and
cancelout, established ways of thinking.
Now, the example I am giving you is that the nation and what would cultural studies
say?Cultural studies would say that nation is not simply a political organization.Nation is
also a matter of discourse.Now, you may think how is need to knowthe nation is a
political and administrative unit.It has definite geographical boundaries.How is nation a
matter of language, how is nation a matter of discourse? The answeris, nation is a
cultural constructand we represent nation in language.Nation is a discourse, nation is
symbolic.For examplehow is nationsymbolic?The nation is symbolic in the sense that
our perception of a unitary nationis held together in the common imagination of the
peopleby certainsymbols, certain images.For instance, the national flag, the national
anthem and allvarious things that signify our nation.
So, the nation is to be understood as discursive, the nation is to be understood as
symbolic, because even if we do not, it is impossible for us to know each and every
member of our nation.We nonethelessare bound to gather by a commonalityor common
pool of. So, to speak imaginativeor resources in the imagination and these are, as we
said, our national anthem are on our national flag andwe also have so many known
national things like our national flower or national dance form etcetera.
So, this is one way in which we understand what we do in cultural studies. We see well,
almost everything as a discursive creationor as a creation of languages, creation of
representation, as a creation of subjectivity. So, this full understanding of all cultural
forms, all cultural practices and institutions as first and foremost, a matter of language, a
matter of signifying practices, a matter of symbolic practices.This I would say is how
cultural studies is different from other domains, different also from it is kinrith related
domains like anthropology, like sociology, literature and language.

Further, I had leaded to science in the last lecture and I said that even science is seen as a
discourseand the understanding of ourselves as beings, is when we look at science as
discourse, you findfor a instance, that science mediates culture.If you look at this slide,
here as I said, it all about description.If you have a question like, if you pose a question
like what is it to be a human being, then you are increasingly drawingfrom the domains
or discourses to speak of genetics, of science and technology and of the medical
sciences.
So, when you describe yourself as a human being from within biology for instance, then
you would say that it is science that is enabling you.It is adiscourse of science that is
enabling you; it is science that isa mediating force in your understanding or description
of yourself as a human being to follow. So, understanding culture, understanding what
cultural studies does is also entails looking atareas like science which are not considered
part of culture, which isthings like domains like science which are considered by for
instance, positivist, as beingisolated from all other different cultural activities.Butwe
would say in cultural studies like science too is a cultural activity, science too is a
description in language, science too uses a common pool of symbolsand science too is
needs to be self reflective in its understanding of how it is a cultural practice.More about
this when we talk about a science, technology and cultural studies in a lecture in module
four.

So therefore,this is related to the beginning ofcultural studies. Cultural studies began
alsoaswhat many would call aninsurgent sociology.It was part ofsociology in the fact
that, it did not agree with some of the impulses in theoretical impulses in sociology,
particularly positivism.
So, it was an insurgent sociology that was against the purely functionalist view of
culture. It tried to say that, well there are huge issues to do with power and politics
behind the so called working of society, behind the so called functions of the
differentunits of thesociety,do you understand?For instance, let us take an example, the
family for instances, the family is a core unit in sociology.It is a core unit of society.And
if you study family simply from the point of view of how family as a functional part of
society and you do not talk about the politicsof the family, you do not talk about
unequalpower relationswithin a family,and then you aredoing simplyfunctionalist
analysis ofa family as a unit.Not only that, you are dangerously playing into the hands of
very powerful discourses, powerful ideologies that hold the family to be simply well
functioning unit of society, hiding issues of inequality and hiding issues of power and
politics within the family.
So therefore, cultural studies is to be understood as almost as a domain that resistcertain
established ways of thinking, particularly the functionalist and positivist phase of looking
at our cultural forms and institutions. Secondly, cultural studies also came about as a
critic, as a radical critic of instrumental rationality.Now, by instrumentalrationality we
mean that reason rationality that is used to maintain the status quo that is it comes
froman unwavering faith in science and technology.Itcomes from looking at science and
technology and technological rationalityas an imperative, which has around, which
weare not to look at issues of power and politics points in.It came about; cultural studies
thereforecame about as a staunch and radical criticof such kind of rationality.Such kind
of rationality gave us a sense of an objectivitythat was, that could talk about, that
everything fromtalk about, everythingin the sense, I would give us the truth with the
capital T so to speak.
So, there was therefore, cultural studies isagaina domain that looks verykind of, it is very
suspicious about a functionalist way of looking at culture, as positively way of looking
positivist way of looking at knowledge and it is also deeply critical of instrumental
rationality.It would ratherdevised a critical rationality or as putting rationality to the test,
critiquing rationality and accepting the best that is there from rationality or reason base
thinking.

So, again therefore, Barker says, we have to understand the power.Let us look at this
powerwhich gives the domain the right to name, which creates official versions and
which creates common sense, which legitimizes knowledge.Power is therefore, like
subjectivity, like identity, like representation; a key concepts and a key term in cultural
studies and in fact, cultural studies goes on to say that everything is infused with
power.Everything is imbued with power.There is nothing that is natural. All systems are
imbued with powerand that is why, that is the reason why cultural studies has this
methodology; the need to re-describe things.Power can name something, then we need to
in a bit to counter power, you will have to be re-describe and rename things. We have to
remove the labels thatpower has givenand we have to be re-describing these things.For
instance, again as you saw the understanding of family as perfectly working, you need
functioning unit contributing to society is a description that has been given bythe
dominant culture by dominant ideologies, as we said, hiding the practices of power that
are there.
So, when moment we re-describedfamily as not simply a functional unit, butas in our
own site of power and subjectivity and of identity, then what we are doing is, we are
challenging the dominant ways of looking at the family by the re-describing. So, you
understand that is how language is used in cultural studies. Language is a tools and
medium of cultural studies.It is really a technology of kind of resisting power.Moment
you can re-signify, re-describe, you have half the battle is already won because you
begin to, as we say, cancel out habitual race of thinking.

So, therefore, as Barker says, power needs to be investigated because power legitimizes
the dominant ways of thinking.Then, cultural studies are also, as we say, not only about
discourses, is not only about abstractions and keyconcepts.Cultural studieshasaspart of it,
is scope;a certain pragmatic wayof thinking.Yes, we do describe things, we do look at
the workings of power of the politics of representation of everything as the cultural form,
the subject of forms, butwe also have a pragmatic attitude, in the sense that, we
understand everythingin culture to benot at all representative of things in his
totality.Pragmatism sees cultural forms, institutions and practices as anti-
representational, as having no foundation, as being provisional and being anti-realist in
the sense that, we cannot ever have a complete understanding of reality.All we can have
really our representations.
So, all this is towards social policy, towards making cultural social policies and social
reform. So, culture studies definitely have as a part of his methodology and scope, a
deeply political commitment and the commitment is that,we re-describe things. We talk
about power presentation and identity etceterain not simply as a linguistic exercise.This
is whatmany people, many critics of culturalstudies perhaps in mistake, make this
mistake of understanding cultural studies only talking about, only for verify this course
where we keep re-describing things and talk about everything as having no foundations,
that is not at all the point.Cultural studies has as part ofwith scope a very powerful aspect
and that is showing, unraveling the politics, the workings of politicsin culture of power
and culture and to help devise policies that would contribute to cultural and social
reform.

So, I would end with finallywithagain one of the very important words and cultural
studies and that this discourse. We found that cultural studies, we found through Barker
that cultural studies may also be called the discursiveformationways ofspeaking. So,
discourses therefore, in cultural studies are objects.They are structured systems and
structuring systems, discourses are ideological systems and discourses are texts that can
be decoded by us.
So, if everything is a way of speaking then; obviously, these are very powerful objects.
They are highly structured objects. They are also of these they structure us as cultural
beings. They are filled with ideology always all thinking and that is why the
understanding of discourse and we have, in fact, the whole lecture devoted to discourse
where we shall be looking at discourse in detail, but that this level it is important for us
to understand that discourse is important because the discourse enables power.

Let us look at this slide, discourse enables power, discourse creates powerand with
power, we find that power can give usjustifications. Power can give usjustifications that
finally go on to become truths.Powerthrough discourse can give us meaning, power gives
us morality and power describes andpower determines our practices.
So, what are the therefore, what are the terms that make up the scope of cultural studies.
Firstwe found that we cannot make a clear distinction, we are not to make a clear
distinction between what is natural and what is cultural.We are biological beings and the
cultural beings and the best way to understand ourselves as part and parcel beingpart and
parcel of culture is from a bicultural perspective.Then we also saw thatcultural studies is
essentiallyformations of discourse and there we found that we cannot ever claim truly or
purely objectivist orpurely objective understanding of reality.Cultural forms that is
constructed by human beings who are themselves part of cultural practices and ways of
life, cultural forms are subjective forms.Therefore, subject forms culture is to do with
representations, with the effects of representations. It is mediated through language,it is
mediated through discourseand behind dominant cultural practices are issues of power
and politics.
Finally, we saw that cultural studies is not simply talking about things in different ways
andre-describing things. Cultural studies has as its goal, its goal is a political
environment in the sense that, it seeks tofinallycontributetosocial reform and to better
cultural policies simply by usingtheir findings as they makethe find out how meaning is
constructed, how discourse have formed, how discourses and representations have
powerto make this world a better place by showing how inequality operates because of
misrepresentationfor instance. Howmedia forms again for instance, instantiate certain
ways, certain definitions for instance of being a womanin society, of being a good
mother for instance.All of these are matters of power and representations and this
essentially is brought about by certain practices of meaning formation.
So, how meaning is constructed, how meaning operates in culture in our ways of life,
how significancecomes in. In fact, Clifford Gatesdefines culture as the webs of the
significance that have been spun by us, that have spun by man in whichwe are all
suspended. So, it is important for us therefore, as beingas culture beings to see how we
are constituted.What are the descriptions that we go by, what are the descriptions that we
abide by.And in doing so, we help processes in cultural policy in trying to devise better
ways of living better descriptions, morefair descriptionsand also lead to better ways of
really living more encompassing ways of living.What we have done in this lecture is, we
have tried to understand cultural studies by pointing to some or pointing at some of its
constituent termsand some of its articulation and all this would be unpackedso in the
lectures to come.

So, we end with quotation again from Chris Barker and with we know Chris Barkers
texts Cultural Studies Theory and Practice is text that you put it, take up astext book
really for this course.And Barker says here,the forms of power that cultural studies
explores our diverse member,Cultural studies targets power, the forms of power that
cultural studies explores our diverse and include gender, race, class, colonialism
etcetera.Cultural studies seek to explore the connections between these forms of power
and develop ways of thinking about culture and power that can be utilized by agent in the
pursuit of change.So, if anyone says that a cultural study is really rarified, only
discursive linguistic exercises and they are utterly wrong. Because all these
investigations are really as Barker says here, to be used by us in the pursuit of social
change and of cultural and political change.


So, we move on then to the discussion and for our first question here is, why are
subjectivity and identity centered concerns in cultural studies?Subjectivity is a central
concern incultural studies because everything in the cultural form is seen is really as
subjective form in an individual or collective sense and the study of subjectivity is
important because subjectivity is what it is a condition, it forms a condition by which we
are formed as persons, by which we are understandourselves as human beings. Then
subjectivity also is important as key term in cultural studies because subjectivity
reallyare the processes or other some subjectivity comprises the processes that go into
the construction of ourselves as human beings, as cultural beings as knowing being.
Finally, the subjectivity about the experience of being a person, all these are cultural
constructions and how we are made subjects.Remember in the first lecture, I have said
that, if you have a question like why do we live the kind of lifethatlive, in cultural
studies, we need to reformulate this as how are we constructed as subjects.

So, we are essentially then, in cultural studies subjects, we are agents and how our
subjectivity has been formed.This should be one of the first questions we ask incultural
studies.Then, identity is again important identity visa we subjectivity is, are you a life or
experiences and the processes that go into.Identity is seen by manyat least indistinction
tothe subjectivity as a social label that is given to us.
So, identity, the study of identity, is immensely important as a scope,as a part of the
scope in cultural studies because his identities tied to issues of class, ethnicity, gender,
sexuality, race; in that we use phrases likeracial, identity are ethnic identity, our class
identity, our sexual identity and our gender identity.These also are part and parcel of the
labors that are given to us in our in cultural practices.So, how we are formed as beings in
culture. Subjectivity and identity are the key areas that we need to explore, if we have to
understand ourselves as culture beings.


Next question, how do cultural studies problematise common sense? And we saw that
common sense is not exactly be considered sensiblein cultural studies, and common
sense we found is spontaneous, too spontaneously you would say, and
unconscious.When things are spontaneous and unconscious and we considered these to
be not well thought out and we consider these with part and parcel of tools of ideology or
the tools of the workings of power.

So, cultural studies also look at common sense, the whole idea of common sense and
tries toin fact, towards Hallin one of his sayingthat, we have to look at the so called
commonsensical practices and to seewhat goes behind making somethingmatter of
common sense.And we will see that their issues of power and politics and ideology
behind things that are considered commonsensical.Therefore, common sense is tied to
ideology basically two dominant forms of ideology and we described ideology as ideas,
doctrines, consciousness, world view and maps of meaning.


Now, again we may unpack this further and we can say thatpower is about naming
thingsand making those names stick though descriptions stick.Power is what gives rise
tocommon sense and official versions and power is for legitimize all these things, the
descriptions that you give, the commonsenseknowledge and official versions are all
workings of power and these need to be scrutinized if these have to be dismantled.Then
finally, why it is important to study discourse in Cultural Studies?Remember,Cultural
Studies itself is defined by Chris Barker as discursive formation of ways of speaking.

This is important that we need to look at discourse and discourse forms are important
part of the scope of cultural studies in that, discourse creates power.Discourse creates
power and discourse and power give us what we understand and accept as truth,
whereaswe say in cultural studies that there is no objective truth.All forms of knowledge
are subjective.Then powergives us meaning, gives us descriptions, power gives us our
practices and power finallygives us our morality.
So, remember cultural studies see everything as representations is representation if
cultural studies are everything asprovisional.And this is very flexibility of knowledge in
cultural studies that ultimately opens doors to social and cultural change.Remember
habits of thinking,this is what is sort to be dismantled by cultural studies in a bit for
social and cultural change.
So, we come to the end of the second lecture and I hopeyou have been able to at least
have a grasp,to begin with,of some of the terms in discourse, power points for instance,
representation, ideology, subjectivity, identityand the fact that cultural studies is a
domain that is, that has as one of its goals, political change in societytowards leading to
better way of living.And more so as individuals, we understand how we are
constructed.Rememberagain, I leave with a mega question, why do we live the kind of
lives that we live, if already by now I hope, hadsome idea in the sense that, why we live
the kind of lives we live are really matters to do with subjectivity, to do with identity, to
do with power, representation and discourse among other key terms.
So, we shall meet in the next lecture.And then I said, the next cluster of lectures in this
module would be devoted to and understanding of ourselves as cultural beings from the
point of view of what science has to tell us.Remember, we arenot going to make
adistinction between a nature and culture here. We are also beings of nature and the way
we are described as natural beingsis also a matter of language.At the same time, we have,
we share and as cultural beings, all of us share evolutionary lineage which has given rise
to a certain mind. And culture has been there, created by the mind which itself has
changed with the changes in brain. So, we need to look at evolution, we need to look at
evolutionary psychology, we need to look at how the brain has changed for instance. So,
I shall see you inthe next class when we begin to talk about Darwinian evolution.
Thank you.

Understanding Cultural Studies Liza Das

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